Buyer’s Remorse? Likely Not.

I read this over at Owen Gray’s thoughtful site, a place where a great commentary seems to be forthcoming pretty much every day:

http://nor-re.blogspot.ca/2013/07/the-rise-of-spectacularly-incompetent.html

In this instance, our Prime Minister is appointing a man who has no diplomatic background to a diplomatic post. It would make sense to me that those entrusted with being the face of Canada in overseas missions would have undergone serious training and would have developed a deep fount of knowledge on world affairs, and particularly those aspects of diplomacy relating to the region in which they will be posted. That clearly seems not to be the case here and, unfortunately, the appointment seems to be just another incident where  Harper is keen to insert into appointed positions those who will be pliant tools of his own views rather than someone who represents something of a broader Canadian consensus view.

I’ve had discussions with various acquaintances and colleagues (when I was still working for a living) about political issues, particularly in the run-up to several and sundry Federal and Provincial elections over the last couple of decades. I have to stress that, while I agree with almost nothing of the politics of some of these folks, I respect them as good citizens, as good people, as people with a heart and a concern for others. In light of a whole series of incidents where the Prime Minister has proven himself to be a sly, devious, petty and controlling politician who works in the service of big money and the energy industry, I just have to wonder whether those who voted for Harper’s faux-Conservatives have any sense that they’ve been sold a bill of goods, that they didn’t get the moral and competent manager they thought they were getting, and that we are all poorer, less protected, more restricted and more misrepresented than at any time in the past. Mostly, I don’t think that the great mass of voters (a dwindling mass at that) really sees the sleaze that hides behind the flag-waging, support-the-troops, energy-superpower, it’s-all-about-the-economy rhetoric of the CPC machine. Incidents like this appointment are an incitement to get some of those good-folks voters together and to give every one of them a shake before asking them if this is what they really envisioned, and to they really care.